It’s not that I think atheism is inherently doctrinaire, of course, but in a context where religion is pervasive and granted lots of respect and deference and special privileges (tax exemptions, seats in the House of Lords, access to major media), it is contingently doctrinaire. It’s political. It differs from a status quo. Schools that take positions in that way are automatically excluding some students; that seems not ideal for schools in general.

Secular schools are de facto atheist, because god is not part of the curriculum. That’s all that’s needed, and it’s better than avowed atheism because it needn’t exclude children whose parents aren’t atheists. Some parents of course want god to be part of the curriculum, which is most unfortunate, but avowedly atheist schools wouldn’t address that in any case.

Francis Beckett is actually arguing for secular education, not avowedly atheist or humanist education, but the NH added a poll asking about the latter. I didn’t vote, because I didn’t want to say no but I also didn’t want to say yes.

20 Responses to “Secular or atheist?”

What is supposed to be the difference ? As you said a secular school is the same as an atheist / humanist school. We’d never consider barring students who are religious – nor would I really want to waste time on saying religion is false/bad in school (considering the lack of time to truly study some of the other subjects).

I would definitely say secular, however, Islam changes things. European secularism is the weaker kind, but was doing well in gradually turning people away from Christianity. But now Islam undermines secularism like a trojan horse, demanding equal status and therefore european secular states accommodate it. Secularism is really only a transitional state, not a rational one.

And so I would go for science schools or naturalist schools, although ‘naturalist schools’ doesn’t sound right to the ears of the mainstream. But that is our real position, and that’s what will sweep away religion and replace it with a rational alternative. Naturalist schools would educate people in the naturalist worldview, giving them the tools to live a realistic and full life, and not only a narrow economic life.

I don’t think humanism nor secularism really hold the answers to a full transition from religion to reality.

I think schools should be secular, for all the same reasons I think civic discourse should be secular. An avowedly atheist school, as has been said, should in theory be indistinguishable from a secular school. An avowedly Humanist school, on the other hand, would teach the tenets of Humanism to kids, which is nice, I guess, but I don’t see the need. At least, I wouldn’t want my child to be educated with only Humanists.

Part of what was great about my public education (in NYC) was that my classroom had all kinds of children in it, different races, religions, cultures. And because our school was secular, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were being educated—together. Secularism is what creates the space for people of different religions, or no religion, to actually interact and co-exist with one another (something religion itself has historically done little to encourage) without reference to religious difference. I don’t like religion. At all. It gives me the willies. But I wouldn’t want my kid to go to school for 12 years without ever interacting with someone who believes something different than her parents do. On the contrary, I want my kid to be exposed to the diversity of society, and to understand that rational folks must use their brains to determine fact from fantasy.

I think there is a difference between a secular school and an atheist school, just as there is a difference between a secular state and an atheist state, or a secular society and an atheist society.

The trouble is that the meaning of the labels is vague and inadequately understood. “atheism” might mean just “not-theism”, or it might mean “anti-theism”, or whatever. And secular might mean “neutral”, or it might mean “disempowering religion”, or it might mean “ignoring religion”, or lots of other things.

For Ophelia, it seems is clear from the context of the article that “atheist school” doesn’t mean a school that sponsors the rejection of theism, it means a school that does not sponsor the acceptance of theism. I would call this “secular”. The assumption of many atheists might be that such a school would have pro-atheist consequences, as they would see religion/theism as something that takes root when carefully inculcated in children. This would be the fear of parents who want their children growing up religious, of course.

However, religious parents might not agree that a “secular” school constitutes a threat to their beliefs, and atheist parents might want a “secular” school without also expecting that such a school would tend naturally to lead to more atheists.

If you did think that a secular schooling would tend to encourage the growth of atheism in society, that might be anti-secularist, since you would be using public money to promote a particular point of view about God.

Another way of casting the discussion is to look at what a school for atheists might be like. Most atheists, I would guess from experience, want their children to think for themselves. Perhaps they are confident that children, encouraged to think for themselves, will tend to come out atheist too – but that’s not a necessary assumption. Anyway, so atheist parents might tend to prefer nonsectarian secular schools which admitted anyone regardless of their beliefs or lack of them. In that sense an “atheist school” would be a “secular school” in my terms.

This is a great question, which I’m deeply interested in as an educator. In general, I’m in agreement with Ophelia’s stance: I don’t think there is really a need for “Humanist” or “Atheist” schools. But I am aware that there are benefits to a school having a clear and powerful ethos. This may be part of the reason why religious schools in the UK tend to do better than comparable secular ones. So if a Humanist school could provide a powerful, welcoming ethos without being exclusive of those with religious faith, it might be an interesting experiment.

Dan, you mean from the context of Beckett’s article it’s clear? I agree with that; he wasn’t talking about an atheist school at all, but the NH was. It’s slightly confusing that way.

Naturalist schools…how about secular schools with a naturalist curriculum? But really I still think secular schools is the better term. It implies (and pretty much requires) “methodological” naturalism for the curriculum without claiming to draft the child into a particular worldview. There is still the problem of integrating secular education with religious education, but that just can’t really be the schools’ problem.

It’s different with higher education. I think an atheist university would be kind of absurd, but it wouldn’t be worth opposing. But primary and secondary education are another matter. They’re mandatory, and the people involved are minors. That’s why state religious schools are an outrage, but it’s also why atheist schools would be a crap idea. Not that atheism is a religion, but it is, at this stage in history, contentious. (I bet you knew that!)

Thanks for the link – I’ve been through those articles. You’ll find if you read the studies linked that many of them find that “much” or “most of” the variation can be explained by practices of de facto selection, but that there is often a small but noticeable remainder that is not. It is small, and debates rage about its significance, but I don’t think it is totally unreasonable to suggest it may be something to do with a strong ethos. It is often quite striking to visit faith schools and secular schools in the same area and observe the difference in atmosphere. You’re right to point those studies out, as I had assumed most would have seen them and I shouldn’t make that assumption. Without citing them it may well have seemed my claim was stronger than it was meant to be.

Secular schools are de facto atheist, because god is not part of the curriculum. That’s all that’s needed, and it’s better than avowed atheism because it needn’t exclude children whose parents aren’t atheists.

I beg to differ. In my mind, atheism ≡ rule of reason.

We can label the schools anyway we like – Ophelia’s Secular School, Becket’s Naturalist Academy, or Dawkins’ Atheist Montessori. It all boils down to the curriculum and the teachers, finally. God being not part of the curriculum is not adequate. It’s also necessary that reason rules the curriculum and the classroom, and not religion.

In the United States, god cannot be part of the curriculum in public schools, because of the Establishment Clause. That does not deter our elected members of the school boards from censoring what the children read and learn — Heather and her two mommies, for example — thereby bringing religion in through the back door.

Today’s judgment in the Evans-Marshall v. Board of Education illustrates this point. There is a lively discussion at Volokh Conspiracy on this. I hope Francis Beckett would read it before he draws up the charter for his school. Then, perhaps, he might change his mind about leaving control of schools in “the hands of parents, children, and the local community”! [Btw, I agree with J. Sutton’s decision, upholding the firing of Evans-Marshall. That’s the law, but how much I would love to change it!]

It’s been quite a while since I left school and I’m not sure what the situation is these days, but I well remember having to go to Assembly each and every morning, listening to all sorts of prayers and having to sign hymns. I even remember the headmaster stopping 600-odd children singing a hymn so as to single me out for “merely mouthing the words”. Do they still spend this inane half-an-hour each and every morning in UK secular schools just because of the Education Act of 1944? In those days you could get out of attending this act by demonstrable affiliation with Catholic, Sikh or whatever faith, but good little non-believers were forced to attend on pain of a good swishing with the cane.

I have never been in the USA but isn’t there some sort of solemn affirmation ceremony in secular schools every morning which includes words confirming the existence of God?

In Dutch schools, which I attended as a lad, a secular school is really a secular school and religion is something you do in the privacy of the home. There are also “faith schools” and I even attended one for six months or so – I’m afraid the piety of the staff didn’t manage to convert me but the way communities like Staphorst continue to live their God-fearing lives shows that indoctrination does pave the way to Heaven.

Theoretically, England is still the theocratic tyranny that Henry VIII set up. In practice, not so much. I had a very interesting conversation the other day with a wonderfully enthusiastic local secondary-school teacher, who runs the ‘ethics and philosophy’ curriculum in the space where ‘Religious education’ used to be. She was emphatic on the rational-sceptical empiricism that underpinned all the debates they discussed.

I contrast this rather charmingly with the local infants’ school [4-7], where the walls have a tendency once a year to be festooned with pictures of ‘what God looks like’. Funnily enough, we don’t have many Muslims around here…

It’s been quite a while since I left school and I’m not sure what the situation is these days, but I well remember having to go to Assembly each and every morning, listening to all sorts of prayers and having to sign hymns… Do they still spend this inane half-an-hour each and every morning in UK secular schools just because of the Education Act of 1944?

That was my experience, too, as a child in England (I’m 45). I’m not sure what they do in non-denom schools here in Scotland these days.

Here in Scotland (separate education system), the problem is that no-one dare challenge religious segregation in state-funded schools for fear of being accused of ‘sectarianism’ by the RC Church hierarchy (which only seems to see ‘sectarianism’ as something done to it, not by it). The only other state-funded religious schools are one or 2 Jewish ones (there are no Protestant, Muslim or any other ones – all other state schools are non-denom). A few years ago, there were plans for a shared campus (non-denom and RC) school in N Lanarkshire: fine. But the local Bishop (of Motherwell, I think) stepped in, and demanded that the ‘shared campus’ should have segregated playgrounds and staff rooms, thereby undermining the entire concept. For various historical reasons, the Labour Party in Scotland panders disproportionately to RC concerns (people of Irish RC descent who would have been working-class Conservatives elsewhere wouldn’t join the Conservative and Unionist Party), and they get very nervous about championing anything that might upset the Bishops. I was stunned when they found the backbone to repeal Clause 2A of the Local Government Act (Scotland’s Section 28), in the teeth of Cardinal Winning and the Protestant fundamentalist bus tycoon Brian Soutar. But otherwise, the politicians here are extremely cowardly when it comes to standing up to religious interest groups.